


Where The World Goes By Like The Humid Air

by WhyNotFly



Series: The Aro Archives [7]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol, Asexual Basira Hussain, Bi Basira Hussain, Bisexual Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Canon Adjacent AU, Canon-Typical depressed Tim, Discussion of sex and mention of sex toys, F/M, First Date, M/M, Non-sexual sleepover (implied), Set in Season 3, Surprisingly healthy and open communication considering the characters!, demiromantic tim stoker, one-sided affection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:28:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29027985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyNotFly/pseuds/WhyNotFly
Summary: “Would you like to come out with me tonight?  For a pint.  I’ll buy.”  Basira steps in closer and Tim can feel the heat of her body for just a second before she strides past him and up the first few steps out of the archives.  “Gets you out of here and well on your way to unconsciousness, and in exchange you keep talking to me.  Sounds like a fair deal.”Basira starts walking up the stairs, her back turned resolutely to him as if his agreement is already a forgone conclusion.  Insufferable.  Just like—“Okay,” Tim says.  He thinks of his flat, the sheets he hasn’t changed in three months, the takeout containers overflowing out of the bin, the silent empty corners.  “Okay.”
Relationships: (one-sided), Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Tim Stoker, Tim Stoker/Basira Hussain
Series: The Aro Archives [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714381
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29
Collections: TMA Mspec Week 2021





	Where The World Goes By Like The Humid Air

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Ana Ng by They Might Be Giants

“So you’re just going home?”

Tim pauses with his messenger bag halfway over his head, glancing up at the voice. It’s almost familiar, being accosted on his way out the door of the institute with _oh just one more thing_ , but Jon’s learned better than to try to talk to Tim. And most days, Tim knows better than to miss it. 

It’s not Jon who’s standing there when Tim glances across his desk, but the new girl. Basira. Seems like only yesterday she was down here in uniform, popping in and out of Jon’s office on supposedly official business. Indulging his paranoia. As if he needed another excuse to mistreat his employees. And now here she is, down in the mud with the rest of them. Even the resentment bubbling in Tim’s chest can’t bring him to be glad of it. This place is like quicksand, taking a life and dragging it down, down, down into the dust and the darkness and using a person for all they have until they’re nothing but an inside-out husk. Tim wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Not even Jon.

But it’s not like he can help Basira now.

“Is that a problem?” Tim finishes settling the strap of his bag on his shoulder, feeling the familiar ache of muscles as it digs into the same place, pressing down on his spine. He’s getting old. How many years is he going to feed to this place? Christ, he’s almost forty and what does he have to show for it? Danny would have done so much more with his life.

“I was beginning to think none of you left this place,” Basira responds, jerking her head back towards the glowing square of frosted glass in Jon’s office door. She slides her gaze over to the side and Tim follows it until he sees Martin staggering into the stacks with an unmanageably large armful of file boxes. Tim doesn’t want to wait around and see the inevitable fallout.

“Yeah well, at least one of us has to have some sense.” Tim shoves his chair beneath his desk hard enough to crack. “If you want some advice? Spend as little time in this place as possible.”

Tim turns off towards the staircase, and unexpectedly, Basira moves to keep pace with him. He knows a thing or two about being charming, and he’s decently sure it isn’t what he’s doing right now. Anyone smart would recognize that he’s not in the mood for conversation, and, judging by how buried in books Basira’s been, Tim would have categorized her as smart. And yet, the questions persist.

“Why do you even come in?” She asks, stepping quickly to match her shorter strides to his. “I’ve been watching you and you aren’t doing any work.”

“Oh that’s _great_ ,” Tim snaps. “Another _voyeur_. You’re going to fit right in here.”

Basira blinks her dark eyes slowly, unfazed by his anger. “If nobody is going to explain how things work around here, then I’m going to figure it out for myself. Your condescension isn’t appreciated.”

 _Nobody ever explained it to me,_ Tim wants to say, wants to cry maybe, or scream, or break something. But what’s the point. What’s the point of any of this anymore.

“I tried staying home once.” Tim turns his head away and counts the familiar lines in the wood of Jon’s door. “Didn’t work.”

“What do you mean didn’t work?”

“Aren’t you just full of questions.” Tim tries to edge out of the conversation, but Basira bulls forward, undeterred.

“Information is key. I can’t make a plan until I know what I’m working with.”

Tim laughs, short and bitter. “You can’t make a plan _period_. This place is it. The end. Game over.”

“Well then why does Bouchard want you all here? There must be some kind of angle.” Basira folds her arms as if she could bully the truth out of the world by sheer stubbornness. She really does remind him of Jon. Something in the eyes, the way she’s looking at him, like he’s just a resource to be cracked open and catalogued. Tim bites the inside of his cheek and grips the strap of his bag tight.

“You get one more question,” Tim says, forcing his voice flat. “I’m not hanging around this pit any longer than that.”

Basira lifts a hand to her chin and rubs the flat of her thumb back and forth across the sharp edge of it. “Would you like to come out with me tonight?”

“What?” 

“For a pint. I’ll buy.” Basira steps in closer and Tim can feel the heat of her body for just a second before she strides past him and up the first few steps out of the archives. “Gets you out of here and well on your way to unconsciousness, and in exchange you keep talking to me. Sounds like a fair deal.”

Basira starts walking up the stairs, her back turned resolutely to him as if his agreement is already a forgone conclusion. Insufferable. Just like—

“Okay,” Tim says. He thinks of his flat, the sheets he hasn’t changed in three months, the takeout containers overflowing out of the bin, the silent empty corners. “Okay.”

***

“You seem way less shocked by all of this than I feel like you should be.” Foam drips down the sides of Tim’s empty pint glass as he slides it off to rest next to the last two he’s drained. He and Basira had squirrelled themselves into the most secluded booth in the corner of the pub, and sat close enough together that no waitress had bothered to come over and clear the glasses away. Works well enough for Tim’s purposes. Underneath the table, Basira’s calf pushes up against Tim’s, as warm as the alcohol flush in his face.

Basira scratches at a mole just in front of her ear. “I’m not exactly new to all of this. I’ve seen stranger things in my time on the force.”

“I guess you didn’t really get to enjoy the comfort of ignorance.”

“I wouldn’t want it.” Basira runs a finger slowly around the rim of her drink, her skin slipping easily along the wet glass. “I didn’t have a choice, but if I had one now I wouldn’t go back to it. Better to just know the truth of the world and then face it. Delusions are a half measure. Doomed to fail, eventually.”

Tim stares down into his empty glass. When was the last time he’d spoken to his mum? He can’t remember now. “I guess you’re right. It’s better to know what’s really out there.” 

Basira takes a long sip of her beer and Tim watches her throat work as she swallows. Abruptly, he doesn’t want her to reach the bottom of it. He doesn’t want to go home.

“So do you have any good stories?” Tim has always been good at filling silence. “From your time on the force, I mean.”

Basira lowers her glass and raises an eyebrow. “I figured you’d be sick of ghost stories, working in the Institute.”

“The cops I’ve hooked up with, they can’t shut up about it. Each story more far-fetched than the last.” Tim circles his hand demonstratively. “Cops love to talk about themselves.”

Basira’s other eyebrow rises to match her first, her expression inscrutable. “An expert in hooking up with cops, are you?”

“I didn’t—” It must be the alcohol that makes Tim’s cheeks flush, because he’s always been comfortable joking about his exploits before. 

“You’re very attractive.” Basira leans forward across the small table and rests her chin on her palm, and Tim feels again like a bug on a dissection table. Like a pressed flower in a book. “I noted it the first time I saw you.”

“Is this a date?” Tim forces out, past the thick tangle of his tongue.

“Why don’t you tell me.” Basira lifts a hand and, for a moment, Tim’s breath stops as he pictures her reaching across the table and touching him, but all she does is tuck a loc behind her ear. “I’m just cataloguing information.”

Basira’s intense gaze flicks over him and Tim swallows hard. “You’re very blunt, did you know that?”

“I’ve been told.”

“Being asked out usually comes with a bit more wooing, in my experience.” Tim forces out a nervous chuckle. “For example, knowing I’m being asked out _before_ we get to the bar.”

“And does that usually work on you?” There’s the eyebrow again. Asking questions Tim really doesn’t want to give the answer to. He ducks his head and feels the unfortunate quantity of beer he now regrets drinking sloshing around in his brain. His face feels hot and runny.

“No,” he answers quietly. Tim resents the dark and quiet pub they’d decided on because in this moment, he’d really rather Basira not hear him. “No, I don’t really do dates.”

“That’s what I thought.” Basira takes a smug sip of her beer as if Tim is a game she’s just won. “You struck me as a challenge.”

Tim isn’t sure how to take that. His head says insult, but his stomach drops out in a flustered way he’s entirely unused to. “Excuse you, I am the furthest thing from a _challenge._ Maybe you haven’t been around the institute long enough to know, but word on the gossip vine is that I’ll sleep with anyone who moves.”

“I’m not talking about sex, Tim.” Is this the first time she’s said his name? Tim suddenly can’t remember anything they’ve said all evening, the blood is pounding in his ears loud enough he’s sure Basira can hear it.

“Sex is easy, mostly pointless,” Basira continues, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “An easy way to feign intimacy.”

“So what?” Tim feels cornered and the familiar anger sneaks back into his voice. Who is she to act like some wannabe psychiatrist? “I _like_ that kind of intimacy. I like sex. I like spending time with people that way. It’s nice to—”

_To get out of my house. To get out of my head. To forget about the feelings I don’t know how to process._

“I think you’re a challenge to be loved by, Tim.” Basira sounds so casual, impossibly casual, leaned back against the booth seat with her hands folded on the table between them like some kind of twisted job interview Tim didn’t know to prepare for. “But I’d be interested in putting in the effort. Apparently I’m in for the long haul at the Institute, this is as good a way as any to pass the time.”

“How can you like me?” Tim asks, overwhelmed. “You don’t even know me.”

“It’s like a hunch.” Basira shrugs. “You have a lot of surface qualities I’m attracted to. I enjoyed spending this time with you. That liking comes first, and that’s what makes me take a chance on getting to know you.”

“That’s—” _too easy_ , Tim wants to say, but hasn’t it always seemed easy for everyone who isn’t him? He wishes he hadn’t chugged through his beers so quickly, he needs something to buy him some time. He needs something to do with his hands.

“I’ve never been very good at liking people.” Jesus Christ, Tim sounds like he’s a grade schooler. He feels like a teenager desperately grasping at straws in truth or dare, when everybody else was overflowing with so many feelings like paint palettes, messy and mixed. How did they know? How were they all so sure?

“You know,” Tim says, reaching desperately for his usual veneer of good humor and coming up lacking. “It took me twenty years to realize I was bi? I’d kissed girls and boys on multiple occasions growing up, and I still didn’t think that I could be. Because I was just….I was waiting for something that kept not coming. That’s what everyone says about bi people, right? We love everyone? Overwhelmed by choices? But I didn’t like anyone. I just didn’t like everyone equally.”

“Most people aren’t worth liking,” Basira replies. There’s no change in her lazy, hooded gaze as she listens to Tim ramble on like an idiot. “No need to waste your time.”

“I spent so long waiting for that feeling, and then when it happened it was overwhelming and exhausting and ultimately…” Tim tightens his hands into fists on his lap. “Disappointing.”

“But even still, you’re not over him yet,” Basira concludes, bluntly.

“Ding ding ding,” Tim’s voice is strained and humorless. “Make the lady a detective.”

Basira seems comfortable to let the silence stretch out, nursing her beer and letting Tim fidget across from her. He’s never been good at sitting still.

“You remind me of him, you know,” Tim says, finally. “Your intensity.”

“Not in any kind of way that’s going to get me a second date though, I presume.” Basira watches Tim from the corners of her eyes as he feels his face begin to burn.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry my new boss is an idiot.” Basira tips her glass and downs the last of her beer in one final swallow. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

“Yeah well,” Tim follows Basira to his feet as she starts putting on her coat, “I don’t give a fuck what he deserves anymore.”

Basira nods at him, resolutely, and Tim is at least fifty percent sure she’s impressed. But her eyes are as impossible to read as always. She turns to go without even saying goodbye, and Tim’s hand darts out to grab her sleeve before he can stop himself.

“Wait,” Tim says as Basira turns back and raises that eyebrow at him. “Could I...maybe I could spend the night?”

Basira narrows her eyes. “I have a vibrator at home and I’m not looking to downgrade.”

“Ouch,” Tim laughs awkwardly. “I didn’t mean for sex, I picked up how that’s not what you’re looking for. It’s just. One more piece of advice now that you’re trapped in the archives with the rest of us?”

Basira turns back to face him, folding her arms expectantly over her chest.

“It’s hard to forge connections, and it’s even harder to keep them. But I think they’re important. We need each other, for better or worse, even if I’m just as guilty of trying to make it on my own.” Tim holds out a hand, palm up. “How about we don’t be alone? At least not for tonight.”

“Fine,” Basira says. “But I’m not holding your hand.”

“Fair enough,” Tim agrees, and the way she looks him right in his eyes as he holds open the door to the pub doesn’t remind him of Jon at all.

**Author's Note:**

> In my heart, Tim starts to communicate better and manages to figure out some kind of supportive relationship with Jon, healing the toxicity both of them are stewing in by being stuck in the archives suffering, and then a tim/jon/basira ot3. Just think about it guys.
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you liked this, come yell at me on tumblr [@apatheticbutterflies](https://apatheticbutterflies.tumblr.com/) I'm fun and post a lot of writing!! Probably no other pairing *quite* as niche as tim/basira but it's all very fun, I promise XD


End file.
